Excelsior House is the oldest hotel in East Texas according to the National Register of Historic Places. Since it opened in the 1850s, it has welcomed some of history’s biggest names through its doors: Ulysses S. Grant, Oscar Wilde, Rutherford B. Hayes and Lady Bird Johnson. They all…

Before I even visited Jefferson, I heard strange reports about what some call the most haunted town in Texas. Many of the ghost stories I heard, however, originate at one of the town’s oldest structures, the Jefferson Hotel.